hwest of Tacubaya,
just beyond Chapultepec. In the American cemetery are buried some four
hundred of our countrymen, soldiers, who died here in 1847. The English
and American cemeteries lie together. The poor people of the city, when
a death occurs in the family, hire a coffin of the dealers for the
purpose of carrying their dead to the burial-place, after which it is
returned to the owner, to be again leased for a similar object by some
other party. The dead bodies of this class are buried in the open earth,
a trench only being dug in the ground. Suitable wood is so scarce and so
valuable in the capital that coffins are very expensive. Those designed
for young children are seen exposed for sale decorated in the most
fantastic manner. One narrow street near the general market and close to
the plaza is almost wholly appropriated, on the street floor, to
coffin-makers' shops. We counted eleven of these doleful establishments
within as many rods of each other. The coffins designed for adults are
universally colored jet black; but those for children are elaborately
ornamented with scroll work of white upon a black ground. One of these
last is hung up as a sign at the entrance of each shop devoted to this
business. When a funeral cortege appears on the street, be it never so
humble, every one faces the same with uncovered head until it has
passed. An episode of this melancholy character is recalled which
occurred on San Francisco Street one morning. A very humble peon was
seen bearing his child's coffin upon his back, followed by the mother,
grandmother, and two children, with downcast eyes, five persons in all
forming the sad procession, if it may be so called. It was observed that
the gayly-dressed and elegantly mounted caballero promptly backed his
horse to the curbstone and raised his sombrero while the mourners moved
by, that other peons bowed their bare heads, and that every hat, either
silk or straw, was respectfully doffed along the street, as the solemn
little cortege wound its way to the last resting-place of humanity.

CHAPTER XI.

The Shrine of Guadalupe.--Priestly Miracles.--A Remarkable Spring.--The
Chapels about the Hill.--A Singular Votive Offering.--Church of
Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe.--Costly Decorations.--A Campo Santo.--
Tomb of Santa Anna.--Strange Contrasts.--Guadalupe-Hidalgo.--The
Twelve Shrines on the Causeway.--The Viga Canal.--The Floating
Islands.--Indian Gamblers.--Ve